I am looking to purchase either Bonzai or SketchUP Pro for 3d stuff just to get started out. I have used the free version of SketchUP for several years (since before Google purchased it) and have several frustrations with how it works. I have downloaded the trial version of Bonzai and was initially quite impressed with it. It seemed to be very powerful and feature rich. But alas, i was not able to put much time into the trial version before it expired. I am leaning towards Bonzai given my experience with the trial and i am likely move on to Form-Z some day for 3d stuff.

That being said, i am wondering if anyone has experience with Bonzai v SketchUP that could give me their opinion on the matter.

Also, is SketchUP Pro functionally any different than the free version? Or is it just a matter of additional features and support?

nice question Matthew...
all I can say is I've been there before, and stilt I have to find an answer... for some reason I never felt like home in both SU and Bonzai, so I'm still with SU free (for what it costs...)
look forward to hear from others too...

I made my decision and purchased bonzai. I received it in the mail yesterday with my registration info. I am hoping to model a home i am currently working on this week as i am just wrapping up the preliminary plans.

It took me quite a bit longer to get around to modeling the home in bonzai than i thought it would.

My experience was less than satisfactory. I found it very difficult, for some reason, to make "well formed" objects. As such, the tools did not work as expected on objects until i took the time to redraw them (often several times) to make them well formed. If i could figure out why my objects seemed to always end up malformed, i still think i would like bonzai better than SketchUP. It is certainly more robust. This robustness does, however, come at a cost. Namely simplicity of use. There are quite a few more tool options to keep track of. The interface also takes some getting used to.

While i am not yet writing off bonzai3d as a modeling tool, i will say it takes more care in use to get things to behave like they should than my experience with SU.